Calling all Tories. Why do you Tory?

Of course they can we live in a democracy.

Its not what I want to know mind but its a valid point.

I want to know why people have a mindset that leads to them taking right wing positions.

I will qualify that, I have always been of the opinion the Tories are master's of convincing people to vote against their own interests and for the interests of capital. This thread up to know is proving my theorem to be correct because there is only a handful of ideological Tories who have replied.
No mate you are fitting what has been said against a predetermined model. The two times I voted for them, I didn’t think hey I’ll vote against my own interests, quite the reverse. The fact that both times I was let down rather suggests a far simpler model; Tories don’t deliver on their promises/lie to get elected. Now some may argue is that not the model for all politicians? But I don’t think it is.
 
There are quite a few areas where Tory ideals may be appealing to the working class though. There are a lot of people in the working class who are either self-employed or single-person companies, who might notice a difference in their pocket as a result of a low-tax economy. When it comes to something like immigration, it is often the working classes that suffer. Most economists will tell you that immigration is a net benefit to the economy, but that doesn't mean that specific working class people in specific sectors aren't harmed as a result when there's an influx of cheaper labour. I get why a bricklayer may question open borders when a load of Eastern European bricklayers come over in the same way that I understand why licenced cabbies would complain about Uber. It doesn't mean they're right, but they're certainly acting in their self interest, not because they've somehow been tricked.

The other thing is that it's the working classes who live side-by-side with the apparent (and sometimes obvious) scroungers and benefit cheats, which can easily make them susceptible to right-wing views. I've heard them from my parents. Neither of them vote Tory, but you hear them moaning about how the bloke next door got a free car because he's on disability, but last week we saw him digging up the garden. Or I've worked hard to pay off this mortgage, but my sister's never worked a day in her life and has just been handed one by the council (both real examples). That innate sense of injustice, valid or not, can definitely cause people to vote against those on benefits even if they are only one rung of the ladder ahead of them. And sure, it's nothing compared to tax dodging from big business or billionaires, but most of us aren't living next door to Philip Green.
I like your 2nd paragraph. bang on.
 
No mate you are fitting what has been said against a predetermined model. The two times I voted for them, I didn’t think hey I’ll vote against my own interests, quite the reverse. The fact that both times I was let down rather suggests a far simpler model; Tories don’t deliver on their promises/lie to get elected. Now some may argue is that not the model for all politicians? But I don’t think it is.
They convinced you too vote for them though. It isn't obvious they are doing it but you fell for it ;)

They are the master's of it and it is the reason why they are the most successful party in the whole history of democracy world wide.
 
There are quite a few areas where Tory ideals may be appealing to the working class though. There are a lot of people in the working class who are either self-employed or single-person companies, who might notice a difference in their pocket as a result of a low-tax economy. When it comes to something like immigration, it is often the working classes that suffer. Most economists will tell you that immigration is a net benefit to the economy, but that doesn't mean that specific working class people in specific sectors aren't harmed as a result when there's an influx of cheaper labour. I get why a bricklayer may question open borders when a load of Eastern European bricklayers come over in the same way that I understand why licenced cabbies would complain about Uber. It doesn't mean they're right, but they're certainly acting in their self interest, not because they've somehow been tricked.

The other thing is that it's the working classes who live side-by-side with the apparent (and sometimes obvious) scroungers and benefit cheats, which can easily make them susceptible to right-wing views. I've heard them from my parents. Neither of them vote Tory,
Whats the problem mate?.
You'll set him off...

~ignore the other quote above. dunno how it got there or how to get rid.
 
There are quite a few areas where Tory ideals may be appealing to the working class though. There are a lot of people in the working class who are either self-employed or single-person companies, who might notice a difference in their pocket as a result of a low-tax economy. When it comes to something like immigration, it is often the working classes that suffer. Most economists will tell you that immigration is a net benefit to the economy, but that doesn't mean that specific working class people in specific sectors aren't harmed as a result when there's an influx of cheaper labour. I get why a bricklayer may question open borders when a load of Eastern European bricklayers come over in the same way that I understand why licenced cabbies would complain about Uber. It doesn't mean they're right, but they're certainly acting in their self interest, not because they've somehow been tricked.

The other thing is that it's the working classes who live side-by-side with the apparent (and sometimes obvious) scroungers and benefit cheats, which can easily make them susceptible to right-wing views. I've heard them from my parents. Neither of them vote Tory, but you hear them moaning about how the bloke next door got a free car because he's on disability, but last week we saw him digging up the garden. Or I've worked hard to pay off this mortgage, but my sister's never worked a day in her life and has just been handed one by the council (both real examples). That innate sense of injustice, valid or not, can definitely cause people to vote against those on benefits even if they are only one rung of the ladder ahead of them. And sure, it's nothing compared to tax dodging from big business or billionaires, but most of us aren't living next door to Philip Green.
They are very good at demonisation, aided and abetted by their friends in the media.

Osborne used the "twitching curtain" analogy to help ferment division. It was very clever, so clever I became a victim of my local curtain twitcher.


The Labour party allowed the Liberal left pro EU cabal to ferment immigration, traditional Old Labour Eurosceptic wing is anti-immigration, or to be more exact in favour of controlled immigration and compassionate asylum. You make great points there, it is ground the RW was allowed to take and exploit, which gained working class support.
 
The Tory party was not always as it is now though mate. It has inhabited the centre and slightly right of centre, most recently under David Cameron who described himself as a compassionate conservative. I can understand why lots of people voted for him in a switch from New Labour.

In my view Cameron turned out to be very much style over substance and increasingly got pulled to the further right of politics.

'The central task I have set myself and this Party is to be as radical in social reform as Margaret Thatcher was in economic reform. That’s how we plan to repair our broken society.'

(Cameron, 2008)

There are many voters (I am one) that like to inhabit the centre ground of british politics, understanding the need for a strong economy prudently managed, whilst still caring a great deal about social justice, poverty, the health service anyone that has been left behind. My views havent really changed over the years and I vote for which ever party most closely match those views. Mostly, I have voted Labour but have voted Lib Dems once, SNP once and Tories maybe twice. That doesn't make me fickle, it just means political parties change emphasis and move right or left depending mainly on who is leading them. Its only really now that the Tory Party of the last five years have acted in a way that would make it very unlikely I ever vote for them again.

Its an honest answer even if it doesn't include deep political insight. :-)
Also that society needs different parts of the spectrum in charge at different times depending on what’s going on in the country at the time. Or that an individual’s personal or business circumstances have changed so they’ll be likely to change their political stance for a period of time.
 
There are quite a few areas where Tory ideals may be appealing to the working class though. There are a lot of people in the working class who are either self-employed or single-person companies, who might notice a difference in their pocket as a result of a low-tax economy. When it comes to something like immigration, it is often the working classes that suffer. Most economists will tell you that immigration is a net benefit to the economy, but that doesn't mean that specific working class people in specific sectors aren't harmed as a result when there's an influx of cheaper labour. I get why a bricklayer may question open borders when a load of Eastern European bricklayers come over in the same way that I understand why licenced cabbies would complain about Uber. It doesn't mean they're right, but they're certainly acting in their self interest, not because they've somehow been tricked.

The other thing is that it's the working classes who live side-by-side with the apparent (and sometimes obvious) scroungers and benefit cheats, which can easily make them susceptible to right-wing views. I've heard them from my parents. Neither of them vote Tory, but you hear them moaning about how the bloke next door got a free car because he's on disability, but last week we saw him digging up the garden. Or I've worked hard to pay off this mortgage, but my sister's never worked a day in her life and has just been handed one by the council (both real examples). That innate sense of injustice, valid or not, can definitely cause people to vote against those on benefits even if they are only one rung of the ladder ahead of them. And sure, it's nothing compared to tax dodging from big business or billionaires, but most of us aren't living next door to Philip Green.
This is a great post.

Just a couple of thoughts I’ve had to add...

I think there is something to be said for the way roles are now paid in society, previously your blue collar worker was at the bottom of the pay scale and made up the bottom 20% of income earners, these were obviously predominantly working class people across the country’s regions and they always worked for someone else.

Now, skilled labour is very much a middle class income group, especially if you are self employed, as you’ve pointed out. Many of the working classes are now doing well for themselves and are bought into the capitalist system.

They have that now, as well as patriotism and the loathing of identity politics, in common with your upper middle class Tory, it’s why the left is now made up of a significant proportion of lower middle classes and students.
 
I don’t agree with big government
I don’t agree in job creation for the sake of it
I agree the individual is a better at spending money than governments
I agree in the rule of law
I agree in protecting those who cannot project themselves
I agree with the concept that those who can do, and those who can’t are looked after
I agree with the principles of free care at point of delivery
I agree immigration is good, I do not agree unlimited immigration is good as it can overrun infrastructure
I do not agree that the best way to equality is by finding the lowest bar and moving everyone to it

That’ll do as a starting point

For me the Tory’s tick all of them to some extent or another, Labour some but not others, the other parties are fairly academic in our system
As you are the only person who has given any real reasons why they vote Tory I will respond to your post and ask some questions.

Do you think small government would have won WW2?
Is the NHS not job creation for the sake of it, is the Armed forces not job creation for the sake of it.

Spending money is a matter of scale, an individual can not build a motorway, a Government using peoples can. Taxation is the means society collects money to function as a collective. No individual or individual company could exist with the collective providing things like infrastructure, education.

Only criminals hate the rule of law. Can small government function in such a way to make the country safe from criminal activity. Would we not all need individual policemen? Is that how you would prefer to spend your money on personal protection or would you prefer the state provide it?

Surely protecting those who can not protect themselves is contrary to small government and contravenes your notion that you are better placed to spend your own money. If you believe it should be done through charity, is that not creating jobs for the sake of it. Same applies to those who can do and those who cant will be looked after. It is almost Marxist as in "each according to his ability, each according to his needs"

Again, you argue against your point of small government. A national healthcare service is quite obviously beauracratic and is big government.

Immigration is good, uncontrolled immigration is not. I am glad you agree with the CPGB

I don't quite understand what you mean about moving everyone to the lowest bar. Left wing progressives want to raise all boats with the tide, it is against the tide overflowing the breakwater

So now we have established you are a Marxist, who supports some CPGB policies, is fairly authoritarian, but believes in freedom to spend your own money, why the hell do you support the Tories, you seem far more at home on the left of politics, maybe even a Libertarian Communist.

Thanks Comrade.

Viva La Revolution.
 
Why is it still a popular choice amongst the English?
well unlike the other 2 nations of the UK and NI, there is a strong anglo-britishness sentiment and so as long as the idea of Britishness is tied to the monarch – and therefore the class system – and some idea of greatness linked to our past empire – and therefore the Tories were always going to win the struggle to represent it.


It’s this feeling that makes England Conservative (even if not generally conservative): the Tories are the party of Anglo-British nationalism and Empire, the party of the ruling class. And the underlying message in much of Anglo-British nationalism is that posh people – and the monarchy first of all – ought to be in charge. That is, after all, who ran things when Britain was ‘great’.

This is why David Cameron and Boris Johnson were considered ‘prime ministerial’ while John Major, Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband weren’t. It’s why the tabloids attacked labour not for it's economic or social policies, but for times it has supposed failure to genuflect sufficiently to the Queen and Country or unwillingness to commit to the mass slaughter of nuclear war by suggesting scrapping trident.


While you live in a class system you will be subribly taught from a young age that the higher class are best suited to rule.

That is how it was for near 200 years until thatcher decided, fuck society let's rip it up and let everyone look after themselves and greed is good anyine falling by the wayside, well tough shit, leading to an even bigger divide or society.

We haven now reverted back, in fact it is this tory party that is living in the 70s and earlier, a smear aimed at labour for the last few years.

Simply the tories will promise you a few nuggets,
less crime (a lie)
Make britain great again (a lie)
Make us a strong nation and world leader (a lie)
Military might (a lie)
Better for business (though will screw over business if in their own interest)

They play on pride in our nation while showing complete contempt for it and unfortunately we lap it up and decide to know our place.
 
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A policy with the benefit of hindsight that all but destroyed the social fabric of many housing estates, depleted the housing stock, led to a massive increase in homelessness, a banking crash and which now makes it virtually impossible for young uns to get a home and means they have to pay sky high rents to owners of former council houses.

Thatcher the fucking idiot denied Councils permission to spend the reciepts taken on new housing to replace those sold thinking the private sector would take up the slack. It was nothing short of a free market catastrophe unless you had the readies to buy for cash of course, then it was the birth of I am alright Jack society.

It was quite possibly one of he worst policy decisions of the 20th century as it sucked demand out of the economy which led to further job losses, higher debts and wage slavery, then the housing bubble and bang goes the economy and years of austerity follow, leading to under resourced public services and health provision and then 100,000 people die.

Thanks for taking part :)

Blaming the housing crisis on Right to Buy is a bit of a myth.

For starters, the housing affordability crisis kicked in a long time after Thatcher had been deposed.

e.g. in 1997 the average housing affordability ratio* in England was 3.5, not having changed much since the late 70s.

* = Ratio of median house prices to median earnings.

However, between '97 and 2006 the ratio nearly doubled, to 7.15. Since the mid noughties it has generally hovered between 6.5-7.5 depending on the state of the economy.

Basically we didn't simply build enough houses during the Blair/Brown years when housing demand was high due to demographic factors (net immigration, divorce rates, older people living longer/staying in their homes longer, etc.)

Shortage of housing also impacts on rents, obviously.

Tenure plays a part (some people will never earn enough to own their own home) but this is small beer compared to the shortfall in supply of homes of all types that was evident during the late 90s through the noughties.
 
As you are the only person who has given any real reasons why they vote Tory I will respond to your post and ask some questions.

Do you think small government would have won WW2?
Is the NHS not job creation for the sake of it, is the Armed forces not job creation for the sake of it.

Spending money is a matter of scale, an individual can not build a motorway, a Government using peoples can. Taxation is the means society collects money to function as a collective. No individual or individual company could exist with the collective providing things like infrastructure, education.

Only criminals hate the rule of law. Can small government function in such a way to make the country safe from criminal activity. Would we not all need individual policemen? Is that how you would prefer to spend your money on personal protection or would you prefer the state provide it?

Surely protecting those who can not protect themselves is contrary to small government and contravenes your notion that you are better placed to spend your own money. If you believe it should be done through charity, is that not creating jobs for the sake of it. Same applies to those who can do and those who cant will be looked after. It is almost Marxist as in "each according to his ability, each according to his needs"

Again, you argue against your point of small government. A national healthcare service is quite obviously beauracratic and is big government.

Immigration is good, uncontrolled immigration is not. I am glad you agree with the CPGB

I don't quite understand what you mean about moving everyone to the lowest bar. Left wing progressives want to raise all boats with the tide, it is against the tide overflowing the breakwater

So now we have established you are a Marxist, who supports some CPGB policies, is fairly authoritarian, but believes in freedom to spend your own money, why the hell do you support the Tories, you seem far more at home on the left of politics, maybe even a Libertarian Communist.

Thanks Comrade.

Viva La Revolution.

Hello Comrade!

Big government is often seen as unnecessary levels of pointless bureaucracy and excessive meddling.

WW2? No, big government would not have won the Battle of Britain and thus WW2 - scramble scramble scramble. Woooooah there, before you take off and meet the hun do you have form 5b filled out? Yes sir here you go. Sorry that needs to be in black ink. Big government wouldn’t have actually needed any of the information on form 5bIt’s entirely detrimental to efficiency and increases cost. This is not to say regulation is in itself bad.

The NHS is not what I would class as employment for the sake of it (mostly) at its heart is caring for the health of the population. Sure I dare say there are some jobs and levels of bureaucracy that aren’t required to achieve this and successive governments have failed to get to grips with this.

Individuals can build motorways, the M6 a case in point, in the same way governments do - through providing the funding to build them - but generally given the way roads are funded through vehicle tax it makes it a challenge and a business case (rather than say an environmental case for bypasses). Let’s remember our railways were private endeavours at the outset.

Birmingham is a great example of what big government - prosperous until Labour thought it could regulate the flow of jobs and money to other parts primarily in the North. Completely ignoring the geography of Birmingham. Now look at it, it took less than a decade to destroy that place.

Moving to the lowest bar is the lefts obsession with “fairness” - shut private schools! shut grammar schools! they scream, they are unfair do they never consider making state schools as good?

I absolutely do not think we should look after people through charity - although that does play a vital role in our system - it tends to be focused and local on its objectives. I’m no more supporting of small government than I am big government.

Lose this obsession with fairness and wealth redistribution (which we haven’t touched on) and I might well vote for them mate!
 
Blaming the housing crisis on Right to Buy is a bit of a myth.

For starters, the housing affordability crisis kicked in a long time after Thatcher had been deposed.

e.g. in 1997 the average housing affordability ratio* in England was 3.5, not having changed much since the late 70s.

* = Ratio of median house prices to median earnings.

However, between '97 and 2006 the ratio nearly doubled, to 7.15. Since the mid noughties it has generally hovered between 6.5-7.5 depending on the state of the economy.

Basically we didn't simply build enough houses during the Blair/Brown years when housing demand was high due to demographic factors (net immigration, divorce rates, older people living longer/staying in their homes longer, etc.)

Shortage of housing also impacts on rents, obviously.

Tenure plays a part (some people will never earn enough to own their own home) but this is small beer compared to the shortfall in supply of homes of all types that was evident during the late 90s through the noughties.

To buy an average house you need to be in the top ~10% of earners these days. Says it all
 

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